Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Day

About this event

The NC Museum of Natural Sciences is a research-based museum with Museum staff who conduct novel research and steward our collections. Our Research Highlight Days feature these researchers and their fields of study. This event will be held on the first and third floors of the Nature Research Center. Join us as we celebrate Astronomy and Astrophysics Research at this event! Presentations 11 AM Observing Massive Stars in the Galaxy Dr. Rachel Smith, NC Museum of Natural Sciences Dr. Rachel Smith will present her current research on the formation of planetary systems in the Galaxy. Highlights will be recent observations of massive young stars, including a unique “runaway” star, obtained with the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. Rachel Smith is an observational astronomer who is interested in how planetary systems form and evolve. She focuses on the chemical pathways that lead to Earth-like planets and the molecules needed for life. Rachel uses large ground-based observatories to gather spectra from stars in giant molecular clouds — nearby factories for new stars and planets. Rachel is especially interested in how data from young stars connect to the formation of our own solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. Rachel is Head the Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Lab and Curator of Meteorites at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. She is also a Professor in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy at Appalachian State University, and is an Adjunct Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. 12 PM Making Sense of Spiral Galaxies: How Volunteers and AI Team Up to Identify Individual Spiral Arms Dr. Patrick Treuthardt, NC Museum of Natural Sciences The winding arms of spiral galaxies are one of their most obvious features. By measuring how tightly the arms are wrapped, we can reveal clues about other components that are much harder to observe, such as dark matter content and central black hole mass. By partnering volunteers with AI, we aim to identify individual spiral arms in tens of thousands of galaxies, measure how tightly each arm is wound, and use those measurements to estimate these elusive properties. Doing so will help us better understand how galaxies similar to our own Milky Way form and evolve. Dr. Patrick Treuthardt is the Assistant Head of the Astronomy & Astrophysics Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and a Research Affiliate in the Department of Computing Sciences at Coastal Carolina University. He studies the shapes and structures of nearby galaxies as well as the underlying physics that produces them. He is also the lead researcher of the Spiral Graph citizen science project and its follow-up, Cluster Buster. Exhibits and Activities Spiral Graph: Cluster Buster We will demonstrate and discuss Spiral Graph: Cluster Buster, our online citizen science project dedicated to identifying individual arms in spiral galaxies and measuring their winding. The degree of winding serves as a proxy for properties such as the mass of th